The Flickr Satyrs Image Generatr

A situla is a bucket that served to decant wine. The shape is well attested in metal examples and in terracotta counterparts of different types. This piece presents a spirited depiction of the wine-god Dionysos driving his griffin-drawn chariot to a gathering of his followers. Particularly engaging is the old satyr Silenos dipping a jug into the decorated calyx-krater, probably to fill the libation bowl in his left hand. On the back, not seen in this photo, Dionysos is seated between a satyr and a maenad and is surrounded by attributes, including a fawn, a cista (cylindrical box), and wreaths.

Greek, Late Classical, South Italian, Apulian, ca. 360-340 BCE. Attributed to the Lycurgus Painter.

Met Museum, New York (56.171.64)

Classical period, ca. 420-390 BCE
No archaeological provenience

The exterior of the cup is filled with a textile pattern borrowed from Classical Athenian ceramics.

(Curiously, the museum placard identifies this piece as Lucanian, near the Amykos Painter)

In the collection of the Bowdoin Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, United States
Gift of Edward Perry Warren, Esq., Honorary Degree 1926
Warren purchased it from Kalebdjian, Paris
Inv. 1923.4

Photographed on display in the exhibit "Etruscan Gifts. Artifacts from Early Italy at Bowdoin" (February 1, 2024 - February 9, 2025)
www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/2024/etruscan-gift...

artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/objects-1/info/1669
bcma.bowdoin.edu/antiquity/objects/1923-4/

Dionysos, the god of wine, and his retinue decorate this bronze vessel called a situla. Across the middle of the vessel, Dionysos reclines in a chariot drawn by two panthers, one ridden by Eros, the young god of love. Various followers accompany Dionysos: a maenad, a goat-legged Pan playing the pipes, and satyrs. This bucket-shaped vessel, now missing its original handle, imitates a particular basket shape that the Greeks called a kalathos. Since the kalathos was used to gather the grape harvest, this vessel's form is cleverly connected to its Dionysiac subject matter.

The technique used to decorate this situla is unusual. Strips of tin, either plain or with figural cut-outs, were laid over the bronze for contrasting color effects.

Gallo-Roman, ca. 210-230 CE. Bronze with tin plating. Provenance only goes back to 1991.

Getty Villa Museum, Pacific Palisades, California (96.AC.55)

Two bronze attachments which decorated the sides of the fulcrum (headrest) of a Roman bed or couch. Although the British Museum's website seems to confuse this with another fulcrum set, the ends are mules' heads, with satyr busts in the roundels at the base. They are inlaid with copper and silver - including the eyes of the mules and satyrs, which are silver. Note the little wings on the mules.

Since this set is 'said to be from Campania' and is dated to the first half of the 1st century CE, they probably came from Pompeii, Herculaneum, or one of the wealthy villas destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Roman, said to be from Campania, ca. 20-60 CE.

British Museum, London (1784,0131.4)

Palace

Milan

This butterfly was on my bucket list for so long. Finally, this summer I was lucky enough to photograph it. Thanks to Jim Brock and Alison Smith!

Get permission for any use.

The so-called Villa Carmiano, located in Castellammare di Stabia (ancient Stabiae, a few kilometers south of Pompeii), was a villa rustica, a farmhouse or villa that managed agricultural concerns. In this case, the Villa Carmiano was concerned with wine production. A villa rustica is distinguished from an otium villa, which was built purely for leisure and luxury, and typically located in the Bay of Naples (e.g. the Villa dei Papyri). It was relatively small, but had incredible frescoes, so perhaps its owner had social pretensions.

The Fourth Style frescoes of the Neronian period from the villa's triclinium, or dining room, have been reconstructed in the new Stabia Archaeological Museum Libero d'Orsi, in the old Reggia Quisisana, overlooking the Bay of Naples. In this photo we can see a painting featuring the Triumph of Bacchus, the procession of the god, his wife Ariadne, Silenus, and various maenads and satyrs, celebrating their conquest of India. Bacchus is pulled, ignominiously, in an ox-cart. The painting on the right is thought to represent Neptune's abduction of Amymone, both shown astride a hippocampus (sea-horse). Surrounding these paintings are beautiful architectural fantasies and marine creatures in the zoccolos (lower register).

A striking architectural vista spans the corner, something completely unique in the architectural record.

Stabia Archaeological Museum Libero d'Orsi, Castellammare di Stabia.

Marble relief with an aged Dionysus and Ikarios, part of the Farnese Collection (not the Borgia Collection, as one of the signs in the museum states). The relief - of which other replicas are known in several museums around the world, e.g. the Louvre, the British Museum, the Hermitage, et al - shows Dionysus as a fat old drunk supported by a satyr and followed by a procession of satyrs and maenads. He arrives at Ikarios' house, his host (and his daughter Erigone?) resting on a kline; a satyr removes Dionysus’ sandals. Because of the curtain behind the kline, it has been suggested that this is a depiction of a stage play, and that the couple on the kline take the place of the audience (unless it was in a private home, audiences did not recline in the theater).

According to the Greek myth, Ikarios was a farmer in Attica. Rewarding Ikarios for his hospitality, Dionysus gave him a vine-cutting and taught the man the art of making wine. Later, when Ikarios demonstrated the cultivation of grapes and the resulting vintage to his people, they drank the wine unwatered; in their drunken state they thought Ikarios had tried to poison them and so they killed him and hastily buried the body. As his daughter was looking for him, a dog named Maira, who had been Ikarios' faithful companion, unearthed the corpse, and Erigone, in the act of mourning her father, hanged herself. The deaths enraged Dionysus who put a curse on the Athenians, causing all of their maidens to hang themselves. Apollo’s oracle at Delphi gave a prophesy when the Athenians consulted him, saying that they should appease the spirit of Erigone if they wanted to be free from the affliction. So since she hanged herself, the Athenians instituted a practice of swinging maidens on ropes with bars of wood attached, so that the one hanging could be moved by the wind. They instituted this as a solemn ceremony (the Aiora, on the third day of the Anthesteria festival), and they perform it both privately and publicly, and call it alétis, which aptly named her a mendicant who, unknown and lonely, searched for her father with the god Dionysus. The Greeks call such people alétides.

Neo-Attic relief, ca. late 1st century BCE — early 1st century CE.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, formerly in the Farnese collection (MANN inv. 6713)

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